Emerging steep-slope devices and circuits: Opportunities and challenges

Abstract

While continuing the CMOS scaling-down becomes unprecedentedly more challenging than before, intensive exploration on beyond-CMOS nanodevice technologies is an appealing approach to further continue the power scaling-down. This chapter reviews some promising beyond-CMOS emerging transistor technologies, including Tunnel FETs, Ferroelectric FETs, and Hyper-FETs. Circuit design techniques based on these emerging devices are also reviewed to provide insights for future energy-efficient analog and digital signal processing. In addition to the opportunities, this chapter also discusses the challenges of emerging devices in circuit and systems.